Conventional touch screens are capacitance-based or resistance-based. These touch screens provide user interfaces through which a user enters input to a computing device by touching a screen at a selected location, with a stylus or with his finger.
Conventional touch screens are generally large. When space is at a premium, such as with small handheld electronic devices, conventional touch screens are limited to only a few user inputs. Moreover, these inputs are not accurately interpreted when the user does not use a stylus.
Conventional touch screens are also limited as to the types of user inputs that they can recognize. For example, conventional touch screens are unable to distinguish between a soft tap and a hard press. Conventional touch screens are unable to recognize fast repeated tapping on the same screen locations. Conventional touch screens are unable to recognize gestures made by a finger or stylus that moves continuously across a touch screen.
It would thus be of advantage to produce touch screens that recognize single soft taps, repeated soft taps, presses, and gestures, for both large and small screens.